Goodbye, Grand Rapids

Tonight is the last night I will sleep in my apartment in Grand Rapids.  For the foreseeable future, it is the last night I will stay in GR as a resident, and not someone’s guest.  This is a sad night for me.  This is the place I became an adult.  I have lived here for 3/4 of my adult life.  I went to Calvin College here.  I went to Calvin Theological Seminary here.  I had my first call at Church of the Servant here.  Living in Grand Rapids has shaped me in so many ways. 
People love to hate Grand Rapids; some call it “bland rapids.”  It is not as big or as cosmopolitan as New York or Chicago.  But Grand Rapids has its own charm.  There are lots of wonderful places and things to do in Grand Rapids.  Let me share a few of my favorites with you:

• Calvin College—where I learned how to be a thinking Christian mindful of the broader world
• Oakdale Park CRC—the church I attended while I was at Calvin
• Ice skating at Rosa Park circle
• Little Africa Ethiopian restaurant—a favorite place my friends would go when we were at Calvin
• $5 student tickets to the Grand Rapids Symphony
• Calvin Theological Seminary—where I did the formal education part of becoming a pastor
• Monroe Community Church—the church that loved me through seminary
• Kava House
• Art Prize—most interesting and fun thing that has started in GR recently
• The Green Well—a favorite with some of my seminary-era friends
• Peking Wok (which has very sadly closed)
• Eerdman’s Bookstore—they have a great selection of discount Eerdman's books
• Concerts at Calvin College—why didn’t I go to more when I was a student?  They have really interesting artists
• The Festival of Faith and Writing—so many wonderful readers and writers gathered together
• Church of the Servant—where I became a pastor
• Summer concerts at the Fredrik Meijer Gardens Amphitheater
• Bethany Refugee Services and the hundreds of refugees that are resettled here every year
• Baker Books and Icons Coffee—wonderful bookstore and coffee shop really close to my house
• Kentwood Public Library

And of course, the people are such an important part of Grand Rapids and my experience here.  Professors and friends from Calvin College.  Professors, staff, and students at Calvin Seminary, where I was enfolded into community.  Other wonderful friends that I made during my seminary days.  Colleagues and congregants at Church of the Servant.  I wouldn’t be who I am without all of you all.
I don’t know where I am going to land in the future, but I am thankful for the ways Grand Rapids has shaped me, and I am excited to take that with me to my unknown destination.  Thanks, Grand Rapids.  Its been great!  

Sunday Afternoon Prayer: Great is Thy Faithfulness

This weekend my family is celebrating my maternal grandfather’s 90th birthday.  My grandpa has been following Jesus for his whole life and would be the first to say that God has been faithful.  Life has not been without challenges, but God has been with Grandpa and used him to bless many people.

Loving and Faithful God,
For keeping a child of your covenant, baptized when he was an infant, safe in your hands,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For his parents who loved him and taught him about you,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For keeping Grandpa safe while he was deployed in the Navy,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For giving him a beautiful wife who loved him until her dying day,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For three children that he loved and supported (and is still very willing to help weed gardens or repair their homes),
Great is thy faithfulness.
For helping him to become a great teacher and principal,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For blessing him with grandchildren—both adopted and biological—that he loves deeply,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For saving his life from cancer,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For Grandpa and Grandma’s consistency at showing up at their grandkids events—church programs, piano recitals, sports games, etc.,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For the hours of volunteer service at Desert Christian High School, World Renew (formerly CRWRC) Disaster Response Services, Bibles for Mexico Thrift Stores, and other places,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For the love he shows his great-grandchildren through creating toys and babysitting,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For the love of and commitment to the church (there are few times I’ve heard him complain about it!) that he demonstrates to all of us,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For 90 years of following you,
Great is thy faithfulness.
Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
all I have needed thy hand hath provided.
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Personal photo of my grandpa and me at my ordination, January 2012.

Everything That Rises Must Converge

Two years ago this week, I started working at Church of the Servant.  I had just graduated from seminary a few months earlier and it was my first pastoral call.  I was nervous.  I wasn’t completely sure I would actually like being a pastor full-time.  And I wasn’t exactly sure what it meant that I was now a pastor.

Throughout seminary, I felt torn.  Before I went to seminary I taught English in China.  That had been an interest of mine since I was in high school.  I went to college with that in mind.  I was an English major and Chinese minor.  And I loved teaching English.  If I had chosen my life’s path I would have gotten an MA in TESOL (teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages).  Instead, God called me to seminary, to the world to theology, Biblical languages and studies, church history, and pastoral care.  And there were lots of moments that I felt lost and out of place.  I would hear people talking outside of class and have no idea who or what they were talking about.  I grew to enjoy seminary and had wonderful internships.  But I still felt like I had two parts.  I had the English teacher part of me and the pastor/seminarian part of me.  And they didn’t go together.

Then I started at COS where I became the primary pastor for the Basic English Service.  As I prepared sermons, I needed the skills I learned teaching English of explaining abstract or difficult concepts with simple words.  I needed the skills I learned in seminary of how to read a Biblical text well and understand what it is saying.  I needed the skill of speaking slowly naturally and articulating words carefully.  I needed the systematic theology I learned to help explain what Christians believe.  I needed all of the cross-cultural skills that I had developed.  I needed to know how to structure a sermon effectively. 
  
In this call, the English teacher part of me and the pastor part of me started to come together.  The threads of my life started to get pulled together into one strand instead of being separate.  My spiritual director shared a phrase with me, the title of a Flannery O’Connor short story, “everything that rises must converge.”  This has been true for me in the last two years.  Everything that had risen in my life converged, and I am so grateful.
I am grateful for the opportunity to preach in this unusual environment and the ways that it has shaped my preaching.  Preaching regularly to a community has helped me form a rhythm of sermon preparation and become comfortable with preaching.  It is still always a little nerve-wracking somewhere in the process, but it also feels like this is what I do, because I am a pastor now.  And preaching in this unique service helped me to hone in on being clear and having one point in mind.  It helped me to think through what is most important in the given passage and leave lots of interesting but not essential information in the study.  It was a privilege to preach to many people that were hearing the story of the Bible for the first time, and I hope that I keep that in mind even if I am in a church where they are a lower percentage of the congregation.

I am grateful for the opportunity to work with the wonderful staff at COS.  They respected me as a colleague, encouraged me when things were difficult, modeled practices of Christian ministry, and loved me.  I learned a lot from spending time with them in the church kitchen and work room, listening in to conversations about the budget, handling pastoral situations, and picking curriculum for kids.  The high rate of turnover with residents is hard for the staff because they get attached to us and then two years are over and we leave, so I am especially thankful that they took the time to get to know me and allow me to learn so much.
I am grateful for the many cups of chai (both Nepalese and Sri Lankan versions) I drank in people’s homes.  I was welcomed into people’s homes with such gracious hospitality.  I don’t think I was ever told I couldn’t come, and it was a rare day when I wasn’t offered chai, or juice, or fruit.  Americans (and I am not an exception) are not that good at being hospitable to strangers.  I hope that I will be able to share some of the hospitality I received with others.  It was a privilege to be welcomed in to homes, to hear the stories of people in my congregation (most of whom were refugees), and walk alongside them in life.  I am thankful for their love and their prayers.
 
I am grateful for the strong volunteer base at COS.  Every program I worked with had strong volunteer leaders—people who dedicate hours of their time and energy to serving the church and community.  I’ll admit, sometimes this was frustrating and sometimes those leaders were frustrated with me.  But I am thankful for the relationships that formed and that we ended on a good note.  I feel at peace that even relationships that were sometimes tense ended well, and I am so thankful. 

I am grateful that many of my experiences, gifts, and interests have risen in my life and converged together in becoming a pastor.  In these two years, I became a pastor in an important way.  I am not wondering if I can do it anymore.  I am not trying to imagine how I would face pastoral situations the way I was two years ago.  Although my time being a pastor at COS has come to an end, and I don’t know where I will be called next, I am a pastor now.  I look forward to the (yet-to-be-determined) day when I start my next call, when I can take all I learned at COS and be a pastor in a new congregation. 

Everything that rises has converged.  Thanks be to God!   

Sunday Afternoon Prayers: For a Bittersweet Day

Today is bittersweet.  It was my last Sunday morning with my congregation.  I am so thankful for these two years, and it is so hard to say goodbye.  And so today I offer two prayers.  Both of these prayers originate in Africa and came to me in An African Prayer Book.

My prayer of thanksgiving, for the people I have had the opportunity to know from around the world and for the ways that they have shown that church can be like a big family.

Our Churches Are Like Big Families

Lord, we thank you that our churches are like big families.
Lord, let your spirit of reconciliation blow over all the earth.
Let Christians live in your love.
Lord, we praise you in Europe's cathedrals, in America's offerings, 
And in our African songs of praise.
Lord, we thank you that we have brothers and sisters in all the world.
Be with them that make peace.
Amen. (West Africa, pg. 65-66).

And my prayer for the people that I am leaving, that God will continue to be at work in and through them and will continue to hold them in the palm of his hand.

The Privilege Is Ours To Share In the Loving

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, the privilege is ours to share in the loving, healing, reconciling mission of your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, in this age and wherever we are.  Since without you we can do no good thing.
     May your Spirit make us wise;
     May your Spirit guide us;
     May your Spirit renew us;
     May your Spirit strengthen us;
So that we will be:
     Strong in faith,
     Discerning in proclamation,
     Courageous in witness,
     Persistent in good deeds.
This we ask through the name of the Father.
(Church of the Province of the West Indies, pg. 96-97)


Prayers from An African Prayerbook, selected and with an introduction by Desmond Tutu, Image/Doubleday books, 1995.
Photo by John Flanigan, http://www.flickr.com/photos/82369865@N00/5414528258/in/photolist-9fsSBu, used under a Creative Commons License

Thanks, Mom!

Recently my sister wrote this lovely post for “Papa Bear” (aka our dad).  I spent my Sabbath time this weekend camping at Lake Michigan Recreation Area, part of the Huron-Manistee National Forest between Ludington and Manistee.  While I was camping and hiking and reading on the beach, I thought about her post, and also that I didn’t only learn about the outdoors from my dad.  I learned a lot from my mom, too.

My campsite this weekend

Mom taught me that you always take your shoes off before you go inside the tent and you always sweep it out before you take it down.

Pizza tonka/hobo pie/sandwich cooked in a pie iron

Mom taught me how to cook not just in a kitchen but over a fire and camp stove.

Mushroom at my campsite

Mom taught me to spot the fungi and pay attention to details in the woods.

 

Reading at Holland State Park, August 2012

Mom taught me to read and to love reading (indoors, outdoors, it doesn’t matter as long as the book is good!).

Big Sable Point Lighthouse in Ludington State Park, April 2013.  I still like this one, even though Mom made us hike 5 miles through the sand to get there the first time (or so the story goes).

Mom taught me to love history and pay attention to lighthouses.

Porter Creek empties into Lake Michigan

Mom taught me all about the awesome state of Michigan.

White birch behind my campsite

 Mom taught me the difference between a white birch, white oak, and white pine tree.

On a hike in the Nordhouse Dunes National Wilderness Area

Mom taught me to be strong and confident so I can have adventures on my own.

Thanks, Mom!

Sunday Afternoon Prayer: For a New Marriage

 

Relational God,

Thank you for being a Trinitarian relationship.

Thank you for creating us for relationships with other people.

Thank you for the calling of marriage, for the calling to live in a life-long relationship that reflects you.

Bless this new marriage relationship, and may it grow and flourish.

May it be a place of trust, joy, hospitality, and service.  Give them grace for the hard times, when they wonder if the relationship is worth it.

May this marriage be a witness to you.

Sacrificial God,

Thank you for your sacrifice—you became human and were obedient to death, even death on the cross.

Help this couple as they learn to sacrifice their own desire for the good of the other.

Help them to forgive each other when necessary.

May anyone who comes into contact with them see your sacrificial love through them.

Loving God.

Thank you for your great love for us.

May this couple know your love more and more.

May each of them grow their roots deeper into you.

As they know more and more of your love, help them to share that love with others—with each other, any children they may have, their church, their families, and their neighbor.

May their marriage be a glimpse of what it means that Christ loves the church.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Personal photo, May 2010